2020

I’ve been pleased with how things have progressed at the back end of 2019. Following the Kingston 10k, I was able to hit my key weekly sessions, pretty much hitting my 2 bikes, 2 runs and 2 swims per week.  As I write I have spent the last 6 weeks uninjured and my running is progressing nicely. I wouldn’t say that I’m getting faster but I am running my 5 minute kilometres more easily and at a lower heart rate. I’ve really been motivated by running and getting my pumps on. Most of my runs are an easy Z2 45 minutes to 1hr 15, ticking over at Ironman intensity and just taking in the local sights as I bimble around. A lot of my runs have taken me along the Thames tow path, seeing many of the landmarks from my DW training with Jamie and Adam 10 years ago. With the very heavy rainfall over the last couple of months the river has been in full flood. I’m just really glad I’m not getting into a kayak this winter.

I’m continuing to have a love-hate relationship with swimming. I’ve been going to a local outdoor pool in Hampton and it’s been a lovely environment to swim in, particularly with all their Christmas decorations up.  It’s just that I never know whether I’m going to have a good swim or not. I’ve got them broken then down as one endurance set and one speed set. With the longer endurance reps I’m trying to slow down and not do them too fast.  I find that I end up absolutely hanging on the last rep and being so much slower as my form deteriorates, so I’m learning to start off a lot more steadily. So far, so good.

I’m starting to think about this season and the plan is to do a few more sporting time trials in the winter and spring, starting with the Kingston Wheelers’ Sporting 14. It’s a lovely event with a horrible course and will give me a good indication of where things are cycling wise, and soon after there’s a couple more Surrey sporting time trials which along with the cycle out and back, will be my Sunday ride.

So a familiar start to this year’s campaign but hopefully with a much more successful outcome in August.

Cheating

Back in the day when I cheated a lot more

It's been a standing joke on the Tritalk forum for a number of years that any form of swimming as training for a triathlon is cheating. To go for ‘a cheat’ literally means ‘I have swum in a pool or lake in order to be a faster swimmer’.  There’s a consensus amongst a large minority of triathletes that swim training is time wasted. Why spend hours in the pool, when that might only lead to an improvement of say, 10 minutes in an Ironman swim? Those hours are better spent, so the theory goes, on the bike or run where much larger gains can often be found.

I think that there is some truth in this. Last year at The Outlaw, I did 5 swims, total, in the lead up to the race. In fact, I only got into the lake three weeks before the event. I swam 1:15. Compare that to the Forestman where I consistently swam 3 times per week in the preceding months, including an open water swim every week and I ended up swimming 59 minutes. This was a great swim and was well above my expectations at the time, but ultimately it was only 15 minutes better than my Outlaw swim with virtually no training.

It’s hard to compare bike splits in these two events as I’m not really comparing like for like. At the Forestman I was on my road bike with clip-on bars and no aero clothing. At the Outlaw, I was in full TT mode. That said, at the Outlaw I was 25 minutes faster for a much, much lower rpe, as I was in full time trial mode and had three years of consistent time trial training behind me. The fact is that with the bike leg of a triathlon there is a lot of low hanging fruit that can be taken advantage of, if you know where to look.

With swimming, I don’t think it’s as easy. You need time in the pool but you also need coaching.  It is by far the most technical of the three disciplines and requires constant drilling and practice to get right and ingrain good technique.  I was fortunate that I had some really excellent coaching with the Kingfisher Triathletes but as I am no longer a member, I need to be a bit more self aware of my faults. Here’s a few things that I know have been weaknesses in the past;

• Crossing the centre line with my hands.
• Head position too high which leads to lowering my hips.
• Shortening my stroke when I’m fatigued, which leads to not finishing at the back of the stroke. 
• Weak and unbalanced kick. 

I don’t do all these things all the time! Only some of them, some of the time! I’m not going to cure all of them in one go, but as I alluded to in my last post, they are things that I can work on over the winter with drills to make some improvement, before focussing more on my speed endurance. 

So what does all this mean? Well, as I’m aiming for the best performance possible at Ironman Switzerland I’m going to need to do a lot more cheating. 15 minutes is a big chunk of time to give up if I am to aim for a low 10 hour time next year. I also want to be able to get on the bike after expending as little energy as possible so that I can work at a higher ftp, without already having expended a good deal of energy in the water. 

 On top of that, I enjoy swimming. I think I fell out of love with it a few years ago when I was really struggling with very severe pool sniffles that left me with itchy eyes and throat and a runny nose for days on end. I’ve cured this now (by joining an expensive gym, but hey ho) and I’m confident that I can get back to a sub 62 minute swim over the next 9 months. 

Final 10 of the year

You would think that being a teacher and on holiday that I would have a lot of time for training, but it just never seems to work out that way with something continually cropping up and my days often having no real structure like normal. Usually my commute ride home via Boxhill is a solid 60 to 90 minute session that I can tick off but finding that time during a holiday day seems difficult. That said, it's about spending a lot of decent time with my children so if I am more lax with my training at this time then I cannot say that I mind. I suppose on top of that my latest injury to my achilles has stopped me running completely and that's always the discipline that is most easy for the time crunched triathlete to train in. No faffing about with kit or getting to a pool; just stick on your pumps and get out the door and 40 minutes later you're done.

Saturday afternoon was the last 10 of the year where I was hoping to maybe duck under 24 minutes but with a strong 25-30mph gusting southerly it was never going to happen. Again, a major mojo dip as I spun over to the start. I don't know what it is but I just don't get up for it when I am warming up. It's not until I have a number on my back that I seem to mentally switch and get my race face on. Anyway, 25:00 which in the conditions I was pleased with, even though I was beaten by Russ, my two-up partner by 1 measly second.  

Coach Cox had been prescribing me one swim session per week but I have been going back to Kingfisher Tri to get a second swim in per week. With no running happening at the moment and my Achilles injury being unlikely to let me to for the foreseeable future it seems that I need to be burning the calories elsewhere. All my swimming equipment has decided to give up the ghost so a mammoth wiggle order has been put in for a winter of pool work.

So my racing schedule for the next month or so is my last three time trials of the season; two 25s and the hilly 12.

#Turbovember Day 5

A hurried 30 minutes in the dungeon before the kids' pick up; mostly high cadence/low resistance spinning with 2x5min efforts thrown in, mainly to keep me warm. This evening it was back to kingfisher Tri for a swim session to start the long process of rebuilding  some swim fitness. While this month is about building some base bike and run fitness, triathlon is 3 disciplines (apparently) so I need to get some swimming under my belt now as well, if I am to stand even the remotest chance of qualifying from the Dambuster Tri. Being 10 minutes down after the swim will mean game over almost straight away. It was mainly technical stuff this evening but I still found it pretty hard. There was no real catch to speak of; I could feel my arm slipping through the water rather than driving with an effective forearm and my spine was too bendy. I was thrashing like a marlin on the end of a fishing line rather than staying straight and it all just felt very weak and underpowered.  It's a long way to go yet and I have found that usually my swim fitness is the one area that comes back pretty quickly.Fatal last words. Doh...

Commute rids tomorrow, lunchtime run with an evening turbo set. Off.To.Bed.

Training with Strava

The last couple of weeks have gone pretty well with me getting back to some regular, if unspectacular training. I'm sticking to my 3 bikes per week, a swim and a paddle. On the bike I have started to use the Strava website and app to record and log my rides. I had heard of this software before but up until now I had no way of recording and uploading my rides. The segments that each ride can be split into means that I can push hard to move further up the league tables for each segment. It's good fun but more importantly it's already making me work harder on rides. I have always been rather one paced on the bike and then that's meant that when I have pushed harder in races it has caused me to suffer later on in the race. I'll need to be careful that I do not turn every ride into an eyeballs out effort, but it's brought a new dimension to my cycling that I can only see helping me. I have yet to become a 'King of the Mountain' but currently I'm lying in second in one segment near home. You'd have thought I'd won an Olympic medal I was so pleased. Bike fitness is returning well as a result and I guess that the commuting that I have done on the bike has kept some background fitness. I can now ride rolling hills with a bit more gusto and my foot is letting me push a bigger gear. When the hills kick up to a steeper gradient then that reveals my deeper lack of fitness and 5kgs excess baggage around my middle, but I'm getting there.

I've tried to keep the swimming fairly relaxed and stress free, with me focussing on drills and 100 metre reps off 2.15 mins. This is a long way down on where I should be but I already feel better for it, despite having terrible pool sniffles for a few days after. Short reps and a long rest seems to be working well and I'll stick with it for a while. I have no reason to hit the open water at the moment but Simon's got a tri at the end of the season so I when I feel that  have a bit more endurance then I'll get along to Heron Lake for some long ones.

I stated a few posts ago that I had reached a stalemate in the Ranger. That's no longer true and since then I have spent a lot of time swimming and I have flat-lined very badly. I wish I could say that I had improved significantly but I honestly have not and it's going to take a lot more hours before I am going to be comfortable in the Ranger. I think it's mainly a technical / core strength issue rather than anything else but sometimes I just know I'm going in, so I need a few more positive paddles to get my head in the right place. The fact that the river's been up on red boards for the last few weeks has not helped. The Hampton Court swim was cancelled last weekend because of this so I did not get the opportunity to be a safety kayaker, which I had been looking forward to. Nevermind, next time.

Thoughts are turning to next season, and as ever it's hinging around what my foot will let me do and the diagnosis that I hope is coming soon. A sub 3 marathon is still top of the list and I'm working on Mrs Wheezy to do something a bit more exciting afterwards. Watch this space.

Good news, good swim, great paddle.

Important stuff first. After scaring the begeezus out of us I'm really pleased that my mother's back at home and on the mend. Last week and the start of this week was not good and she's still got a lot of recovering to do but she's now in her own house and getting some decent sleep.

Cycling has been more commuting with most of it being at Olympic bike pace (ish) and I manged to extend my ride on Tuesday evening so that I ended up cycling to Hampton Court before gunning it back home.

Wednesday became swim night. :-) My focus over the next three months is going to be focussed purely on technique, concentrating on the drills that I can execute fairly well. The problem with doing drills on your own is of course, that you cannot actually see what you are doing and therefore it's fairly difficult to be able to correct your errors which is the whole point of doing drills. Somewhat a catch 22. :-/ That is where the club swim sessions will come into play, with the swim coaches there giving me things to work on. To make them easy, I have designed most of my sessions in 100 metre blocks, so for example wednesday's main set looked like this;

4 x 100 as 25 catch up / 25 finger drag / 25 catch up / 25 finger drag

4 x 100 as stroke counting, working on stroke extension (averaging 21 / 22 spl) :-(

4 x 100 as 25 catch up / 25 full stroke / 25 catch up / 25 full stroke

4 x 100 as 25 catch up / 25 finger drag / 25 catch up / 25 finger drag

So lot of short reps without trying to batter myself, although it was getting tough by the end. I was not happy with the stroke counting and should be comfortably down in the 17 / 18 strokes per length but as this is my first session in eight weeks I cannot really moan too much.

It's my catch that needs the most work at the moment. I am not cranking my arm and getting my forearm paddle working so the front part of the stroke is a dead spot, developing very little propulsion.

Running is non-existent. The Luton Marathon will not be happening as my achilles will not take the punishment of a full marathon program but I am hopeful that I will be able to get some halves in before the new year.

Adam and I paddled last night and it was our best one yet, with a strong tempo paddle from Sunbury to Walton and back. A big milestone for Adam in particular as he was feeling really relaxed and the boat was running a lot more smoothly.

It's time to put the Van Nic on the turbo tonight and start working up to some threshold intervals. Nice......

First Post (kind of)

I suppose that this should be some sort of introduction and explaination, so let's get the niceties out of the way first.
I am a middle of pack (mop to the uninitiated) triathlete. My first triathlon was a sprint event way back in 1989 after I had been getting bored with running, which had always been my main sport. (again, MOP, sometimes a bit higher if a strung some training together). Every five or ten years I would half-heartedly get back into running or even give triathlon another go, lose a stone or so and then stop and put the weight back on. It was a constant yo-yo with no real ambition, aim or point to what I was doing other than the vague aim to 'get fit'. And then about six years ago a colleague at work passed away following a sudden illness and that same week I saw a photograph of myself that had been taken at a family party, that showed me with big rosy cheeks and one more chin than I should have had. These events were the wake up call that told me I needed to get some semblence of fitness back in my life and the next week I had joined my local tri club and was drowning, in only a semi-controlled way in the slow lane at the club swim session.

So where does the paddling and Devizes to Westminster race come into it then? Well, until last year it did not feature at all. The DW was a race that I had heard of but I had no real knowledge of. However, last year was spent with me dealing (badly!) with an injury which completely wiped out my triathlon season so as I had been asked by Jamie to take part in the DW with him, it seemed like a good challenge to give me something to do. It turned out to be one of the hardest, but yet most enjoyable physical challenges that I have ever done and I really wanted to have another go to inprove on our performance from 2010. It also introduced me to a sport that I have got a lot out of; core strength, upper body conditioning, mental toughness, but most importantly it allowed me spend a lot of time with my bro. One of life's good guys who I had slowly been losing touch with.

This year has seen an improvement in my triathlon performance (I completed three races compared to none last year; always a good start). As I am now in the 40-45 age category I have suddenly found mysely moving up in the age group races, which has been a pleasant surprise. I have also discovered the joys of bike time trialling this year in a desperate effort to get my skinny little legs turning the pedals over faster. So all in all, this year, quite unexpectedly, has been a good year. :-)

Blogging is truly self-indulgent and I have written a couple of other blogs, most notably on tritalk, where I have been fortunate to get a lot of advice from people a lot more knowledgable than I about how to train and compete. Then Jamie and I started training for the DW and we started a blog on the canoe and kayak website to log our exploits and get advice on training that would hopefully keep us out of harm's way. Two blogs, quite frankly, seemed ridiculous and quite hard work (I was meant to be training, not tapping away at a computer). So, it seemed like a good idea to combine the two and just have the one place where I posted my inane drivel.

My aim next year, is to compete in my first long course triathlon. With four Half-Ironman events to my name over the last three years and a host of other events, this ambition is long overdue and I hope to give it a really good go next summer. This blog is my way of keeping a tally on what I am doing. If anyone is reading this, then that's great but like most blogs, is about me, me, me, so please don't expect much else. I also have a really annoying habit of changing my plans constantly. (This beacme very apparent the other night when I was looking back at my old blog; the changes in direction were truly staggering.

Anyway, when I've worked out what the next six months might entail, I'll stick it down here.